At last, Changtian pointed at someone below and said, "The one in the temple—was it her?"

This was a vast pine forest. The woman had lit a campfire under the shade of two big trees. She had already changed her clothes, no longer in the white dress from dusk; yet when Ning Xiaoxian saw her face, she felt it looked somewhat familiar. Only, where had she seen her before? In her memory, the image was vague and uncertain.

This woman’s cultivation was not high. It wasn’t until the two of them had walked very close that she finally looked up in confusion and saw Ning Xiaoxian.

Just one glance, and it brought out a terror too late to hide—and a deep, bitter hatred!

Even with Ning Xiaoxian’s stability, seeing eyes like that, she still felt as if a venomous snake had fixed on her back—chilling and uncomfortable. At last a gleam flashed in her Sea of Consciousness, and she suddenly understood: she did recognize this woman, it was just that she had never looked her in the eye before, so the impression hadn’t been deep.

"You’re the maid who was always by Jin Manyi’s side."

This woman had seen Ning Xiaoxian several times while following Jin Manyi, but she didn’t know who Changtian was, so she gritted her teeth and forced out, "You brought such misery upon the entire Jin Family, and now you still want to wipe us out completely?"

The entire Jin Family, what had happened to them? Ning Xiaoxian’s heart stirred and she looked toward Changtian. After waking, she only knew that Jin Wuhuan had been killed by Changtian in Bai Yujing, but no one had ever told her what happened afterward behind Jishi Building. Only now did it occur to her that Jiuxiao Sect had been massacred by Hidden Stream, and since Jin Wuhuan had been the main force besieging her, how could the Jishi Building under his control not be implicated in Changtian’s wrath?

"What does that have to do with you?" Changtian’s expression was indifferent. "Where is Jin Manyan?"

That line of his was infuriating enough. The Jin Family’s maid choked, then sneered. "You’ll never catch my lady..." Before she finished speaking, Changtian had already stretched out his palm and pressed it against her temples.

He was clearly still about seven meters away from her, and his reaching motion wasn’t even fast, yet she couldn’t evade it. Eyes wide open, she watched this handsome man’s slender fingers stroke her forehead, seemingly gentle. Her heart had just thudded like a startled deer when darkness already swallowed her vision.

When Changtian asked that question, it was only to trigger her subconscious memories of Jin Manyan, so he could use the Soul Searching Technique. On someone with such a low cultivation, he wasn’t willing to spend even half an extra effort. This was the specialty of his old rival Yin Jiu You, and he himself was highly practiced at it as well.

He concentrated on the Soul Search for quite a while before the corner of his mouth finally showed a faint cold smile. Then his fingertip hooked, and this maid’s Divine Soul was drawn out by him. Her cultivation hadn’t reached the Nascent Soul Stage, so the Divine Soul she had condensed had yet to take full human form, but already had a vague outline. Ning Xiaoxian’s cherry lips parted slightly; before she could make a sound, he casually pinched his fingers together, crushing that slim ghost as if it were an egg. The soul fire shuddered a few times, then dispersed between Heaven and Earth.

Although this maid of Jin Manyi had tripped her up a little back in town, Ning Xiaoxian had always felt she was just unlucky to be implicated, happening to run headlong into Changtian’s gun barrel. She had escaped from the Jin Family’s calamity into the Mortal World, as insignificant as a grain of millet falling into the great sea. If not for the malice she harbored toward Ning Xiaoxian this time, she really need not have died.

Ning Xiaoxian shook her head, drew her Longsword, found an open patch in the forest, casually dug a pit, and buried this little maid whose name she didn’t even know.

Changtian stood with hands clasped behind his back to one side. When he saw her finish all this, the corner of his mouth twitched.

There it was again—that faint killing aura! Her eyes rolled, and she asked ingratiatingly, "Shall we continue on our way now? The night is very clear; the stars above can guide us." He had always put her studies first. If they boarded the boat, she’d probably be safe.

"No hurry." Changtian’s lips quirked slightly as he held out his palm to her. "Come here."

"What is it?" She forced a laugh, but inwardly alarm bells were ringing. Ever since stepping onto the Immortal Path, her sixth sense had remained sharp. Now she only felt this man was like Wuzhier Mountain back then: beneath the calm surface was a suppressed, seething fury that made her instinctively afraid to draw near.

He said nothing, just looked at her, slowly arching one sword-like brow, the pressure rolling off him. She quickly smoothed away her smile, ignored the warning in her heart, and placed her small hand in his palm.

The next second, she was yanked into his arms, and that sense of being surrounded by a fierce beast surged up again.

Changtian clamped a hand around her slender waist and sat down by the fire at an unhurried pace before saying softly, "Little baby, your body is fully recovered now, isn’t it?"

She nodded foolishly.

"Good. Then there’s no need to hold back." The corners of his lips lifted; at last he smiled freely and with satisfaction, under the moon looking both handsome and bewitching. He rarely laughed so openly, and the sight left her momentarily dazed—but when she heard the second half of his sentence, her little heart gave a sharp tremor. "Xiao Xian, since when did you learn to lie to me?"